1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driving mode changing method and apparatus of an autonomous navigation vehicle, and more particularly, to a technology that stably ends an autonomous navigation mode by efficiently transferring a control of the autonomous navigation vehicle to a driver even when the driver is not seated on a driver seat during a failure of the autonomous navigation vehicle.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An unmanned (e.g., an autonomous) vehicle performs a task in various environments, for example, the unmanned vehicle is autonomously navigated until a task is input through an optimal path that is safe and rapid. The autonomous navigation technology of the unmanned vehicle includes layers such as global path-planning (GPP) and local path-planning (LPP) based on a detection region of a sensor mounted within the unmanned vehicle.
In the global path-planning, which is a consideration layer, a reasonable path up to a given object point is set off-line based on a large-scale topographical feature such as a mountain or a lake and a duty risk degree based on a pre-provided digital elevation map (DEM)/digital surface map (DSM) and feature data base (FDB).
In the local path-planning, which is a more responsive layer, topographical information and various obstacle information such as a topological gradient and roughness are extracted from world modeling data within several tens of meters that are the most recently obtained by various sensors, and a movement path up to the next passing point generated in the global path-planning is set in real time in view of safety and stability using the extracted information.
The autonomous navigation vehicle changes a driving mode to a manual driving mode when a failure is detected. In other words, a control of the autonomous navigation vehicle is switched to a driver to allow the driver to drive the autonomous navigation vehicle. Therefore, when the driver is not positioned on a driver seat, but is positioned on for example, a rear seat, the driving mode of the autonomous navigation vehicle may not be changed to the manual driving mode.